


What Happened in Albania

by Just_Lola



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: what happened in albania
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-27
Updated: 2015-11-27
Packaged: 2018-05-03 15:26:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5296493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_Lola/pseuds/Just_Lola
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reyna, Nico and Hedge shadow travel to a weird, magical place, where horrible things happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey so hmm this is my first fanfiction ever and I had the idea after reading BoO, that Albania part puzzled me so... This is my interpretation of what happened there. Enjoy it ^^

Nico, Reyna and Hedge quickly got back to their feet. Nico was still staggering from the shadow travel; Reyna had to hold him when he fainted. Green trees covered in moss surrounded them.

The forest was very quiet, now that Reyna was paying attention. Too quiet. Carefully, she put Nico down, and untied the heavy statue from her back. Suddenly, she heard someone panting, and steps. There was a beautiful woman, wearing a long, gray dress, running in their direction. She didn't seem to notice them. She looked like she was running away from something, or someone; she kept looking back.

The woman stopped next to an old looking tree, took something shiny from a bag, said a few words and the thing just - vanished. From her point of view, Reyna couldn't see how she did it. “Probably a daughter of Hecate or something”, she thought.

Then, another pair of shoes could be heard. And this time Reyna was sure she was paying attention; the man also appeared out of nowhere. Very weird.

"Please! Your mother is worried about you she wants you to come back..." Reyna could hear the man's voice, but there seemed to be a delay; his mouth moved way before the words came out. "She sent me. She's very ill and misses you"

Reyna was mesmerized by the scene. She was visible for them, but they didn't seem to care about her, or weren't able to see her. Hedge noticed the movement ahead.

"Hey! Hello?" he called, waving. The couple ignored him. "Rude. Are they some kind of impolite ghosts or something?"

"I don't know. They seem so real. But they're not really _here_ , you know?" Reyna shivered. There was something weird about these people. Even if you disconsidered the man’s curly wig, or the 10th century clothes.

The woman stopped running and looked back, straightening her shoulders, as if making a decision. She obviously despised the man, and, when she spoke, her voice was clear "Why are you here? Did mom promised you my hand if you tracked me down?" she sneered "You are repulsive. I'll rather die than be with you. And you can tell her that she'll never have it back. She'll never find it." She spit on the ground, between the man's feet.

His face went red, then purple with anger. "How dare you?" he said. It looked like he was reaching for something inside his fancy-looking clothes. Reyna shouted for the women to be careful, while Hedge reached for his baseball bat - but the strangers didn't seem to hear. 

The man was now pointing a knife at the woman's chest. She didn't look frightened anymore; just sad. Reyna threw a dart, aiming the man's shaking hand, but the weapon just passed trough his flesh, without harm. The man wasn't disturbed be the sudden attack. 

"What--" she heard a confused Nico say behind her as she ran in the man's direction. The man stepped forward and plunged the knife into the woman's chest. The woman's eyes were full of gloom and conformity as she fell to the ground; a soft *thump* could be heard as she hit the leafs below. The man's expression changed from hatred to deep regret in less than a second, as he looked at the corpse at his feet and back at the bloody knife.

Reyna tried to take the weapon from the distressed man, but she couldn't touch it. She could just watch as the man covered the dead body with his own, mourning the life he took. She could just observe the blade make it's way to the man's chest, and see another life slip away between her fingers.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I hope I got the time line right, I do think so but it's been almost a year since I last read Harry Potter, so maybe I got somethings out of order (sorry)

"There was absolutely nothing you could have done." Nico was sitting down now, his pale face twisted in pain. "I-I don't know who-- what were those." Rayna looked back at her feet, where, less than a second ago, there were two bodies. Now, to her surprise, there was nothing but leaves, resting too still in the forest floor. Cautiously, she started to get back.

"What the...?" Hedge said. "But they were there! They were real, right?" he said, looking at the boy.

"I think they were just memories. Not impressions, not souls, not _exactly_ ghosts, but the forest's memory of a bloody event. I don't know if you noticed, but these trees don't have dryads. There is no life here, except for us."

"But-" a loud popping sound cut Reyna's words. A good-looking boy appeared – it was starting to get silly - out of nowhere. This was really getting on her nerves. He pointed a stick to some trees, near to the location of the just-seen drama scene. Suddenly, sparkles came out of the stick.

"For Pan's long lost panties, what is happening with this place?!" Said Hedge, as the blue sparkles led the boy to the tree where the girl hid something before. But the tree looked older. How was _that_ possible? "We should really stop asking this question" thought Reyna. 

The boy smiled. He said a few words - latin, maybe? Reyna couldn't hear well - and the tree opened. It's trunk snapped in half, and inside she could now see a silver crown - or was it a tiara? - with a blue sapphire in it.

The something-like-a-ghost snapped his finger, and a dirty, hungry looking man popped next to him. He started muttering to himself, and all Reyna could hear was "ritual", "blood", "soul", "this will do it", a lot of muffled latin and something that sounded a lot like "whore crocs", though it couldn't _possibly_ be that. 

“We have to save this man! There’s something very wrong with the boy” said Hedge, and a green light filled the forest for one second. They all gasped as the older man's body fell to the groud. Somehow, that light had killed him.

Nico was a bit shaky when he spoke “I told you, we can’t do anything. We’re actually not even supposed to be here. There’s something very wrong with _this place_. And not just the murders or the weird magic, this part of the forest does not belong with the rest of the world. Something powerful happened here. Something very important.” Nico’s voice was still weak, but he was back on his feet. Reyna looked away from Hades’ son, to the other boy, but he had vanished. The farmer’s body, though, was still on the ground; but it was just bone now.


	3. Chapter 3

Then, as if it wasn’t weird enough, horrifying enough, there was a shadow. They couldn’t see it, but it was _there_. Nico gasped, and Reyna understood why: the shadow should have been dead, but it wasn’t; it was unnatural, and every cell in Reyna’s body screamed _bad scared death sick help go away wrong wrong wrong._

The shadow was weak, but it got stronger over time. And they felt the little animals that once lived in the beautiful forest be taken by the shadow, one by one. It entered their bodies, invaded their minds and twisted their souls until there was nothing left. Hedge shrieked beside them, hands in his head, sinking to his knees, his bat useless and forgotten. Nico squirmed in pain, and Reyna screamed in sorrow; she couldn’t control herself. At last, after what seemed to be an eternity had passed, the shadow was able to settle. 

For some reason, the snake lasted longer, long enough for a foolish man to come by. Reyna tried to warn him, tried to shout, but he wouldn’t listen. The man looked so sure of himself, and then… Reyna could feel the shadow inside her head now, in glimpses, and she knew it was inside the man’s head; it was offering greatness, prosperity, power, and the his eyes were sparkling with greed. The shadow was convincing, and only asked to be let in, to share mind and body, but this was too much, the man couldn’t let it happen, such evil shouldn’t be free into the world, he couldn’t accept it, no wealth was worth it, no… But the man was young, foolish, greedy. 

By the time the snake had died, the man’s head had been deformed to accommodate a new host, and the man itself seemed terrified of what he’d done, of what he’d become. But it was too late. The trembling man left the forest, and the face behind his head grinned in a way that made Reyna’s stomach twist in fear and disgust. There was something familiar about it, but Reyna was sure she’d never seen anything this perverted before. It was loose on the world now, and nothing could stop it.

Only, it returned soon afterwards. How could Reyna tell it was soon? She didn’t know, as time never seemed to pass in this place, but she felt it; a year, maybe a little bit more, but the shadow was back now, weaker, angrier, frustrated, full of hatred, _more_ hatred. And the little sparkle of life that had started to grow was smashed once again, and Reyna was crying. She didn’t notice the tears at first, but when she looked at Nico’s face she saw her own grief mirrored in his eyes. She held his hands, and Hedge’s too; this was too much to bear alone.

And that evil, soulless mass of pure hatred and pain continued to take all the happiness around it, entering the animal’s bodies, invading, claiming what was not its. It preferred snakes for some reason and, once again, attracted another foolish man to that part of the forest. Only this time, the man could transform itself into a mouse, almost like the guinea pigs in Circe’s island, but he did it, as it seemed, at his own free will (all this Reyna noticed with the tiny part of her mind that was still rational, still conscious, still sane).

And the man seemed scared, scarred, beaten, defeated. He was desperate, as if that hopeless, hateful and destructive shadow was his only hope. He took the snake and it’s master with him, careful, shaking, and Reyna just wanted to beg for him to leave it be, forget it, keep it away from everybody and everything, for it would make the world suffer, and laugh as it burned. The man, the snake and the deadly shadow left. Reyna felt Nico pressing her hand, stronger, and she felt – she hoped – that it was over now, that they were free.


	4. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess it is kind of an epilogue? I mean, there isn't much action, just... closure. Even tough there wasn't THAT much action in any of the chapters... oh well, I just hope you enjoy it

Reyna found out that she couldn’t speak just yet, and tried to recover her voice, ask Hedge and Nico if they were okay (which they obviously weren’t, and neither was she, but they _had to move on_ , they had to _go_ and never look back), when a clear, timeless, genderless voice echoed through the forest, through their bodies and minds:

“The Peasant died for power. The Baron died for love. The Lady greeted death like an old friend. The story repeats itself, over and over again. There was great evil here, and great pain. The Darkness took life, twisted it, claimed bodies and souls. It shall not be forgotten, in this world or any other. The forest remembers”.

The three of them, now alone, went silent for a while. Then Hedge spoke “Maybe we should come back here after, you know, the whole Gaea-waking-up thingy. Maybe we can… solve this” the last part sounded like a question.

“No.” Reyna heard her voice, trembling, weak, and cleared her throat “I.. don’t think we should, I don’t even think we could find this place again” They all understood the desperate tone in her voice, _I don’t want to come back, I don’t think I can do this again. I couldn’t bear it._ Both silently agreed with her.

“Besides” Reyna was surprised at the frailty in Nico’s voice “It is near Greece, too dangerous for demigods, and we don’t want anyone dying in a useless and pointless quest. I don’t think… I don’t think we could help these people, any of them. It seemed, I don’t know how, but... Far away from here, even though it’s the same place, you know?” they knew, and felt the same “It won’t do any good to snoop around. Besides, I don’t know if I could find this place again. Something attracted me here - death, I think - but now it’s gone, and we don’t even know where we are.” Nico wiped his tears away, looking around as if he was expecting an information sign to appear.

“Let me see… Considering the trees, this kind of moss, the position of the stars, and the smell, we are either in Bosnia, Montenegro or Albania. Probably the last one, because you can’t go that far on shadow travelling these days.” Hedge was trying to distract himself, do something, look busy, anything not to think about what just happened.

“So, we’re just gonna go? Forget about this, never look back?” Reyna felt relieved, even if a bit frustrated. She wanted to get away from this creepy, terrifying, sorrowful place as soon as possible; she was more afraid than curious, and _that_ was a first. She dried her eyes and sighted “okay, then. Nico, are you ready?” They looked one more time at the silent and lifeless forest as they vanished into the shadows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand, I'm really sorry for the cheesy speech at the end :P I was inspired when I wrote this, and thought of myself as some kind of poet lol. I wanted to write something meaninful, but end up with something cliche, I know, sorry

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading, I really hope you liked it, and if you have any suggestions, or comment or whatever, fell free to tell me (since this is literally the first time I write any fic ever, and English is not my first language, please, be nice. I tried, I swear). I'm sorry that I have no idea whatsoever about how to use this website and the tags and the warnings so yeah :P


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